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Wunder, C., Wiencierz, A., Schwarze, J., and K�chhenhoff, H.:
Well-being over the life span: semiparametric evidence from 
British and German longitudinal data

Description of data and STATA do files used in the study

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I. Provenance of data for Great Britain (BHPS)

The British data used in this study are available officially only to 
registered users of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). For a 
full documentation and the conditions of access, see 
http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/bhps.

Given access to the BHPS original files, the data set can be
replicated using the Stata add-on package PanelWhiz v2.0 (Nov 2007),
see http://www.panelwhiz.eu/, running the retrieval file  
"BHPS-1-Retrieval.bhps".

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II. Data dictionary for BHPS:

    Variable            Description
    --------            -----------
    ls                  life satisfaction (7-point scale)
    age                 age
    female              female = 1; male = 0
    ln_hhinc            log of net household income
    ln_hhnpers          log of household size
    bad_health          health problems: yes = 1; 
    educ_mid            education: mid = 1; otherwise = 0 
    educ_high           education: high = 1; otherwise = 0
    jstat_ausb          in school = 1; otherwise = 0
    jstat_empl          (self-)employed = 1; otherwise = 0
    jstat_unem          unemployed = 1; otherwise = 0
    jstat_reti          retired = 1; otherwise = 0
    mstat2              coupled = 1; otherwise = 0
    mstat3              widowed = 1; otherwise = 0
    mstat4              divorced = 1; otherwise = 0
    mstat5              separated = 1; otherwise = 0
    mstat6              single = 1; otherwise = 0
    attr_in_1           attrition in 1 = 1; otherwise = 0
    attr_in_2           attrition in 2 = 1; otherwise = 0
    attr_in_3           attrition in 3 = 1; otherwise = 0
    period2-period10    wave indicators 

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III. Provenance of data for Germany (SOEP)

The German data used in this study are available officially only to 
registered users of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). In order
to become a user, one has to apply at the Deutsches Institut f�r
Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW), Berlin. For a full documentation and the
conditions of access, see http://www.diw.de/english/soep/.

Given access to the SOEP original files, the data set can be 
replicated using the Stata add-on package PanelWhiz v2.0 (Nov 2007),
see http://www.panelwhiz.eu/, running the retrieval file 
"SOEP-1-Retrieval.soep". 

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IV. Data dictionary for BHPS:

    Variable            Description
    --------            -----------
    life_sat            life satisfaction (11-point scale)
    age                 age
    female              female = 1; male = 0
    disabled            disability status: disabled = 1; otherwise = 0
    hospital            number nights stayed in hospital
    educ                years of education
    ln_netto            log of net household income
    ln_hhsize           log of household size
    german              German born = 1; otherwise = 0
    fulltime            full time employed = 1; otherwise = 0
    parttime            part time employed = 1; otherwise = 0
    unempl              unemployed = 1; otherwise = 0
    single              single = 1; otherwise = 0 
    divorced            divorced = 1; otherwise = 0 
    widowed             widowed = 1; otherwise = 0 
    west                West-Germany = 1; otherwise = 0 
    attr_in_1           attrition in 1 = 1; otherwise = 0
    attr_in_2           attrition in 2 = 1; otherwise = 0
    attr_in_3           attrition in 3 = 1; otherwise = 0
    d_year4-d_year24    wave indicators 

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V. List of replication files and description of each:

Filename: BHPS-1-Retrieval.bhps
Description: Retrieval from the original BHPS files, requires the 
add-on package PanelWhiz v2.0 (Nov 2007) for Stata.

Filename: BHPS-2-Coding.do
Description: generates and re-codes variables retrieved from the BHPS.
This data replicate the descriptive statistics for Britain in Figure 3
and Table 2. The file "BHPS-1-Retrieval.bhps" needs to be executed
before.

Filename: BHPS-3-Estimation.do 
Description: This file estimates the semiparametric regression models
based on equation 4 using the Bristish data. It produces results for
Britain in Figures 4 and 5.

Filename: SOEP-1-Retrieval.soep
Description: Retrieval from the original SOEP files, requires the
add-on package PanelWhiz v2.0 (Nov 2007) for Stata.

Filename: SOEP-2-Coding.do 
Description: generates and re-codes variables retrieved from the SOEP.
This data replicate the descriptive statistics for Germany in Figure 3
and Table 3. The file "SOEP-1-Retrieval.soep" needs to be executed
before.

Filename: SOEP-3-Estimation.do
Description: This file estimates the semiparametric regression models
based on equation 4 using the German data. It produces results for
Germany in Figures 4 and 5.

Filename: *.log
Description: All files with the extension .log are STATA log files for
the respective STATA do files. The log files provide the output from
executing the code when data and code are placed in the same
subdirectory.

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VI. Software used

The data used in this paper are extracted using the add-on package
PanelWhiz v2.0 (November 2007) for Stata. PanelWhiz was written by John
P. Haisken-DeNew (john@panelwhiz.eu). We use the command -xtmixed-,
available in Stata 10 MP for Windows XP, to estimate the semiparametric 
panel models.

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Contact:
Christoph Wunder
Department of Economics, Univ. Erlangen-Nuremberg
Lange Gasse 20, D - 90403 Nuremberg, Germany
Phone: +49-911-5302 - 260, Fax: - 178
Email: christoph.wunder@wiso.uni-erlangen.de